Why Bob Barr? Why now?

When asked Thursday why he's running, Bob Barr responded in a way that's a perfect reflection of how I feel and why I'm taking the time and spending the energy I am right now. Here's Barr's interview - Bob Barr: Raising the debate by Bill Steigerwald. What I agree with is his answer to Steigerwald's first question. Are we going to selfishly, partisanly ride this republic into the ground, or are we going to do something public-minded to restore the Constitution?

Floored by the debate

I was floored by the debate Friday morning on Fox Business between Wayne Allyn Root and Mike Gravel, happily so. Never did I think I'd see the day when people would debate on TV with liberty as the measure. I look forward to the second debate on Tuesday, May 20, hosted by Reason Magazine, which will include Bob Barr.

I was surprised to hear that Root shares part of my position on taxes. He'd replace all federal taxes with one tax, collected by the states on a per-capita basis. He calls it "Clean Slate". However I'm not a fan of poll taxes, even if indirect.

I believe it's more equitable to tax on the basis of time, allowing one moreover to properly credit time served on juries. I'd move the collection of federal income tax to the state governments, as they're more civil, being closer to the people. I'd flatten it, à la Steve Forbes, whom I supported in 1996 and who sent me a Christmas card or two after I asked permission in 1994 to reproduce a Forbes article in The Minnesota Libertarian, and Robert Hall, one of the fathers of the world-wide flat-tax movement, with whom I once had the privilege of speaking in his office at the Hoover Institution two decades ago, while I was looking for a dissertation adviser friendly to Hayek and his Denationalisation of Money (we spoke of transaction costs).

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Update (May 18, 2008, 11:40 am Central): It just occurred to me that my idea about connecting a flat income tax with jury service credit on a time-basis, leaving such service optional, would induce people who are honest in their tax filing to serve, and dissuade those who are not. This would be a good thing for juries. Pardon my mumbling on a side issue. The basic idea I came up with years ago, and it's simple. Credit jury service via a flat income tax credit commensurate to the time served.

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Update (May 18, 2008, 1:15 pm Central): The article from Forbes Magazine was In bed with the devil by Brigid McMenamin, with the byline "No need to wait to find out how a Clinton-type health plan would work. Minnesota already has it. How is it working?" (Forbes, Sep. 12, 1994) We gained permission, but only on payment of $400, which the Libertarian Party of Minnesota couldn't afford at the time, if memory serves.

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Now playing: The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement
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Bob Barr's book's a bipartisan bombshell

I finished Bob Barr's book today, The Meaning of Is (2004). Though his theme is Clinton, in fact, it's a bombshell lobbed against both parties, or factions as they've become.

My evidence?

As America burned, the Republican Party was fiddling away.

p. 114

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Like nervous corporate CEOs, the leadership structure of the Republican Party and it[s] corporate patrons preferred predictable consistency above all else. They felt they could deal with any reality as long as that reality was stable.

p. 227

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In the new Congress, partisanship was everything. You played on a team and you were loyal to that team no matter what. Independent thought was strongly discouraged, and loyalty was enforced through a system that rewarded lemmings and punished mavericks. If you towed the line, you got campaign cash, action on your bills, and perhaps a shot at a committee chairmanship. If not, then the party leadership was not going to lift a finger to help you get anything done, either in your home district or Washington. The same system was enforced in both parties, and it ultimately made it difficult for anyone to cross partisan lines...

p. 148

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We have a huge responsibility as a nation. We can close our eyes. But when we open them, the problem will still be there, looming before us with a brooding darkness. We can answer this question the wrong way. And allow the president to hold his office with the knowledge that he has committed multiple felonies. Or we can answer this question the right way. The only right answer to the question is to respond to presidential felonies with impeachment. Regardless of whether the president is ultimately removed by the Senate, we must take this step in the House, as directed by our Constitution, in order to establish a precedent that will prevent future presidents from engaging in similar conduct.

p. 171, quoting himself, emphasis added

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We had not damaged national security, attacked the integrity of the criminal justice system, abused the most powerful public office in the world, or violated the constitutional rights of large numbers of American citizens. Bill Clinton had done all of these things, and this was the reason he was being impeached, not because of the affair he had with Monica Lewinski or the long list of affairs that preceded it.

p. 180, emphasis added

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If any other person had done what Bill Clinton had done, he not only would have been prosecuted, but convicted, sentenced, and put in jail. Obviously, no prosecutor in America was going to bring an indictment against a sitting president. But that is precisely the reason the Founders put the impeachment provision in the Constitution. The whole point of the trial was to determine his guilt or innocence. By arguing that Clinton had already been tried and cleared—when he had not—[Senator Dale] Bumpers conveniently gave the senators cover to vote against removal, even though presented with a clear factual case for doing so. Like any masterful attorney, he was giving the jury a plausible reason to do what it wanted to do, even though its desires ran contrary to the facts and the law. Put colloquially, the senators were chicken, and Bumpers was giving them a place to hide.

p. 199, emphasis added

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Along these lines, I observed one of the most amazing cases of odd behavior by a senator during my closing presentation. Its source was Alaska senator Ted Stevens. Stevens chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and consequently owns one of the most heavily kissed backsides in Washington, D.C. He is constantly besieged by a cornucopia of special interests, all seeking their own slice of taxpayer money from the budget pie. He is a guy who is used to having everyone around him act exactly as he wants them to. Early in the trial, he had emerged as one of the most strident opponents in the Republican conference to putting together a real trial. He wanted the spectacle of the impeachment trial to end as quickly as possible so the Senate could get on its real business—which as he saw it was doling out taxpayer monies.

Still, I expected Stevens at least to keep his opinion to himself during the actual trial. Needless to say, I was surprised to look up during my initial presentation and see him slowly moving his hand back and forth across his throat while staring me down. Either they guy was having serious thoughts of suicide, or he was giving me a sign to sit down and shut up. Here, I thought, was Senate arrogance at its best.

p. 209, emphasis added

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Does party membership amount to little more than the kind of choice a college freshman makes in choosing a fraternity or a young criminal makes in choosing a neighborhood street gang in which to participate? If parties are mere labels, rather than representations of deeply shared principles, then the answer is "yes."

p. 228

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The Libertarian Party actually seemed to grasp the significance of Clinton's assaults on individual freedom. In a public call for impeachment in July 1998, the Libertarians argued that Clinton "has the worst record on civil liberties since Richard Nixon, and the worst record on economic issues since Fidel Castro. What he's done to the Constitution should be classified as a hate crime." Specifically, they cited the administration's systematic assaults on cherished constitutional principles, most notably those contained in the Bill of Rights. I found myself fully in agreement with their logic, and we became close allies in the impeachment effort, although I still disagreed with the party's position on several issues such as abortion and drug legalization. Interestingly, this disagreement would surface four years later when, in running for election in a new district, the national Libertarian Party, in a move reflective of the old adage about "cutting off your nose to spite your face," worked hard to defeat me over the drug issue, even though on privacy and civil liberties I was—in the words of many of the party's own members—one of their best friends in office.

p. 102, emphasis added

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Can women say no?

The point here is not that Clinton had extramarital affairs while in office. He was not the first president to cheat, and he will not be the last. Bill Clinton's adultery was—in my view—something that was between him, his wife, and God. I am amazed that any spouse would tolerate his brazen behavior, but it is none of my business. However, what was my business as a member of Congress is that the evidence clearly showed that the president of the United States was a sexual predator (and, of course, a perjurer and obstructor of justice.) There was a clear pattern. First, Clinton targeted women he believed were vulnerable to his advances and who could not say no due to their station in life or their personal circumstances. When some of these women did say "no," they were subjected to a carefully orchestrated and brutal campaign that involved lawyers, political operatives, donors, and White House staff, with the clear goal of threatening or pounding them into silence.

p. 100, emphasis added

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Can Congress say no?

Requests from the executive branch to pass its legislative proposals without hearings are becoming more, rather than less, common, even as the complexity and importance of that legislation makes it imperative that the Congress conduct searching and substantive—if time-consuming—hearings (as was not done with the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001).

p. 229, emphasis added

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Ignoring the Separation of Powers and attempting to make end runs around Congress was a favorite Clinton strategy, and the use of Executive Orders was his favorite tactic for doing so. In their legitimate form, Executive Orders are simply management tools used by the president to keep federal agencies running in the most efficient manner possible. They reflect the clear intent of laws passed by Congress and merely put a finer point on existing law. Bill Clinton turned this logic upside down, using Executive Orders to legislate—in clear violation of the Constitution—because he though[t] it too much trouble to be bothered by negotiating with Congress. ...

Some of the most insidious sets of Executive Orders were those issued by Clinton on the topic of federalism. A bedrock principle of the Constitution, which is woven throughout the debates over its passage and permanently protected in the Tenth Amendment, is that powers not explicitly delegated to the federal government belong to the state governments and the American people. Although the notion of federalism was being consistently eroded by years of contrary legislation and court decisions, no president had ever changed all that. They essentially set up a system where any conflict between state and federal regulations was automatically decided in favor of the federal law. This meant all an agency that wanted to run roughshod over a state had to do was pick a fight, which it knew it would win because the game was rigged ahead of time by Clinton's Executive Orders. Simply put, this amounted to crippling the Tenth Amendment, and it was done solely by executive action without any involvement from the courts or Congress.

pp. 91-92, emphasis added

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However, the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) quickly followed [the failed attempt to require Clipper Chips in telephones]; the Clinton administration convinced Congress to pass this act in 1994. Under CALEA, every phone company in America is legally required to install snooping technology in all its new equipment so that government agents can listen in with ease.

p. 90, emphasis added

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I am anything but a supporter of terrorists and criminals. I spent a large portion of my adult life working for the CIA and prosecuting criminals at the Department of Justice, so I am not unsympathetic to law enforcement. However, I have a theory about law enforcement: investigations can be hampered more than benefited by new authority and fancy technology. In my experience—privacy concerns aside—relying too much on sophisticated laboratories and massive wiretapping operations rather than on shoe-leather police work often resulted in cases that took too long to bring to trial and were far too weak and complex once they got there. For example, wiretapping can quickly overwhelm an investigation, particularly if multiple targets are involved or language barriers are present. Merely trying to cope with the resulting information is like trying to drink from an open fire hydrant. Despite the shortcomings, many agents like these methods because they are easier in many ways than old-fashioned investigative work.

p. 85, emphasis added

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Who's defending civil liberties and due process now?

In past years, being a Democrat meant having a certain appreciation for civil liberties that went far beyond mere expediency. To be sure, Democrats did not always protect individual freedom, but they were far more reliable allies for the American Civil Liberties Union than were Republicans. This assumption of American politics cracked and ultimately shattered during the eight years of the Clinton administration. The first sign that this philosophy was dying occurred when many respected liberals went out of their way to cover up actions by federal law enforcement in the Waco attack. It went completely out the window when the Clinton administration introduced its draft anti-terrorism legislation following the tragic Oklahoma City bombing.

pp. 81-82, emphasis added

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Much later, the FBI was forced to admit that it did use incendiary munitions after officials—including Janet Reno—testified under oath that they did not do so. ...

There are still numerous questions surrounding the Waco tragedy. At least two things are certain, however. First, top federal law enforcement officials from Janet Reno down behaved as if they wanted everyone in that compound dead, and their actions achieved that result. Secondly, the same top Clinton administration officials participated in an extensive effort to cover up the truth about what really happened at Waco. ...

I kept pursuing my hard line of questioning, but as we all know, it was largely in vain. We succeeded in getting important facts one the record, but the official version of the story is still largely one of a fiery mass suicide that the federal government was powerless to prevent. This, like so much of what passes for commonly accepted official stories in Washington, is a lie.

pp. 78, 80, emphasis added

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As most Americans remember, Bill Clinton put Hillary Clinton in charge of a task force to develop a new health insurance plan for America. ...

Making this bad situation worse, Hillary insisted on meeting secretly to work on the plan. This resulted in a head-on collision with federal laws requiring government meetings to be open to the public if they involved non-governmental individuals. ...

Interestingly [the precedent] might also be used to prevent White House officials from being compelled to testify about conversations with other private individuals. Such a privilege—if asserted based on this precedent—would certainly encourage all kinds of corrupt conduct currently banned by law. In fact, it was this very argument that Vice President Cheney's legal team made in a bid to keep information about his energy policy task force secret when sued by Judicial Watch.

pp. 51-52, emphasis added

Now I know what my vote for Bob Barr would mean.

A vote for Bob Barr is a vote for due process and the rule of law.

A vote for Bob Barr is a vote to let government officials know that no one is above the law, the Constitution, and a respect for human rights.

A vote for Bob Barr is a vote for holding our President accountable. Our country needs a good impeachment. A vote for Bob Barr is the next best thing.


One last quote :-)

While I was frequently derided throughout my congressional career for never smiling, next to Maxine Waters I was the Cheshire Cat.

p. 131

Version 1.1 - bit about factions added May 18
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Bob Barr is going to smile a lot more

I laughed out loud at a cafe with my earbuds on [4:09].

Update (May 16, 2008): Just to be clear, I found Barr's response quite endearing.

First report Bob Barr is running

tweet

Update (May 12, 2008, 10:50 am Central): Jay Goodman Tamboli reports

Barr criticizes McCain's singing about Iran and Clinton's comments. Says war should not be taken so lightly.

Many people may not know this, but Barr graduated from high school in Iran. This is a big plus.

Update (May 12, 2008, 6:25 pm Central): Part of Bob Barr's announcement on video thanks to CNN.

Update (May 13, 2008, 12:30 am Central): The video's now on YouTube



There's audio of the Q&A following his announcement here.

I hear the media presence was significant.

Update (May 13, 2008, 2:15 am Central): Bob Barr made an additional announcement on Breitbart.tv

Link: sevenload.com

Update (May 13, 2008, 12:00 pm Central): More on the strong media presence from ThirdPartyWatch.

Bob Barr - how one president set the precedent for another

4 years ago Bob Barr wrote an intelligent book on how President Clinton set the precedent for President Bush in the accelerating erosion of our civil liberties and due process. Here he describes how an FBI "wish list", which included many of the things Democrats complain so vehemently about with Bush, came to light and how the Clinton administration "drafted a massive anti-terror package and sent it to Congress," some provisions of which Barr successfully defeated in 1996 "by banding together with libertarian-leaning conservatives and civil libertarians in the Democrat ranks. (p. 87)"

Tomorrow at the National Press Club, Bob Barr might announce that he's running for President.

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Update (May 12, 2008, 9:50 am Central): Minutes to go before Barr speaks. I just read a critique of Newt Gingrich by The Other McCain.

Ralph Z. Hallow of The Washington Times has a story about Republicans who fear the potential impact of a Barr LP candidacy:

Republicans, both publicly and behind the scenes, are saying that a Barr run could hurt him financially and sink Mr. McCain's Republican candidacy in the general election, likely against Sen. Barack Obama.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told The Times today that "Bob Barr will make it marginally easier for Barack Obama to become president. That outcome threatens every libertarian value Barr professes to champion."

Electing the co-author of McCain-Feingold would threaten no libertarian values?

I'd add what Barr wrote in his book on p. 223,

When Republicans finally waved the white flag of surrender and caved in to Clinton's budget demands, the approach taken by our leaders was particularly disturbing. Through late fall and early winter 1995 as the "crisis" played itself out, in meeting after meeting Newt had been urging us to hold tough. Newt repeatedly reminded us that principle had gotten us where we were and must always be our ultimate guide. In the end, however, Newt changed course suddenly and completely, telling us we were going to give Clinton what he wanted, and we had by-God better support it. He even told us—for the first time to my knowledge—that he was going to keep a list of every member who did not vote to cave on the Clinton spending package and that the list would later be used to punish us.

Update (May 12, 2008, 10:20 am Central): Why is Newt's cave an important issue for everyone, all Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike? Ask David Walker, the recent Comptroller General of the United States of America. See - Thomas Jefferson and the Barbarian Invasions

There is a way forward - part 1

Liberty and anarchy are opposed. I have written about this elsewhere. Suffice it to ask, as I did tonight, where is there a market for due process? The election of 2008 is at its heart about civil liberties and due process, principles I, for one, believe Lady Liberty loves, Americans love, and dare I say voters would love if they could get past identifying religiously with one Party or Another and brave their fears.

There is a way forward I'm gleaning from the turmoil I'm seeing. In a series of posts, I hope to give words to what I see.

Related posts:

• Hey hipsters, liberty is the New Left
• Liberalism, socialism, and conservatism
• The difference in being a liberal

What are Bob Barr's positions?

And why is Bob Barr even thinking about running for President with only 6 months to go? Bob Barr answers on Reason.tv

The driving issue this year is due process, our only hope for putting a brake on the accelerating breakdown of our American civil and natural liberties, an emergency brake perhaps.

Due process not only applies to the microcosms of a business being wiretapped, a person being rendered, a home being disrespected, but it also applies to the larger events. It is Congress's job to hold a trial of sorts before the dog of war is unleashed, before the President is sicced on any land. They failed in restraining President Clinton, and they continue to fail with President Bush. Instead they try to vest the power elsewhere childishly, namely with the executive himself, contrary to the Constitution, per Federalist 69.

The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies -- all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature

Both parties have failed to stop government anarchy. Barr speaks of the rule of law, applied to government.

Ron Paul delegates sweep Minneapolis's congressional district

All Republican national delegates elected yesterday by Minneapolis's congressional district are Ron Paul supporters. I've heard this from two sources. Here's the story. Here's the district. This district, my district, includes Minnehaha Creek and the entire city of Minneapolis.

I no longer support Ron Paul, for strong reasons I have written about here and elsewhere where I fear the words of liberty are but camouflage, but I do support the message of liberty. I hope this is a signal for liberty, not for those who merely tout it.

Update (Apr 6, 2008, 6:00 pm Central): Reportedly Ron Paul supporters swept the Republican 4th district election, too. In the 6th, they elected all but one of the national and alternative delegates, amidst controversy.

Update (Apr 7, 2008, 10:48 pm Central): There's an interesting article by Bob von Sternberg and Kevin Duchschere in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Update (Apr 7, 2008, 11:27 pm Central): Reaction of Prof. King Banaian at St. Cloud State University - What the Hell Happened at the CD6 Convention?

Update (Apr 8, 2008, 3:04 pm Central): From Google Alert, these just in...

• Democracy in Action of the Day
• Just A Bunch Of Disorganized People

Update (Apr 9, 2008, 2:51 pm Central): More info on the 6th Congressional District convention, from the Wright County Republican

• An Apology to the Ron Paul Folks
• 6th CD Convention Redux: Chilly With an Occasional Peek of Sunlight

Bob Barr 2008 opens presidential exploratory committee

BobBarr2008.com

Update (Apr 5, 2008, 9:00 pm Central):

Update (Apr 7, 2008, 9:00 am Central):Video of Bob Barr's announcement at the Heartland Libertarian Conference, Apr 5, 2008
Bob Barr, in his announcement, mentions [15:41-15:50] the newly released 2003 memo from the executive branch, which references another executive-branch memo which "concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations". For more on this, read Administration Asserts No Fourth Amendment for Domestic Military Operations. Barr argues [15:51-16:54],

It raises the interesting question, 'What is an administration doing talking about "domestic military operations" in the first place? What about posse comitatus?' Oh, that's probably another one like the Geneva Convention, just sort of quaint and outdated. Well, the notion that our military has no business whatsoever engaging in domestic operations needs to once again be reminded to the American people, and, in so doing, we need to let the American people know that there is in fact one party out there, maybe the only one, but there is one party out there, one political vehicle out there that they can latch onto, that they can ride with, that actually does believe in and preach and will defend to the death our Bill of Rights and freedoms, not just in the 4th Amendment, not just in the 2nd Amendment, not just in the 1st Amendment, but in the whole range, including those which are long forgotten to the American people.

Update (Apr 8, 2008): Here's a report from Atlanta, Georgia.
Hat tip: Third Party Watch

Update (Apr 11, 2008): Barr polling at 7%.